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Finally Made it to Cebu City, Philippines

We arrived at Cebu Airport a little after 2 a.m. I could tell from looking out the airplane window that it had been raining. We deported the plane, and were led through customs. It was a simple process to show my passport, and continue on through. It was a short wait for our bags to arrive in the baggage claim area. Lane loaded their six plus bags onto a baggage cart, I rolled my two bags. Lane, who was too busy earlier, went to use the bathroom. He then went to the currency exchanged booth to exchange some of his US currency for pesos. Because of this we were the last group to leave the baggage claim area. This created a bit of a problem for us. We were stopped buy security who required us to show our baggage claim tickets. I for one did not have a baggage claim ticket, I don’t recall ever receiving one in Las Vegas. Lane did have tickets, but did not have them readily available. Lane finally did find his baggage claim tickets, and the officer checked my passport against the name on my luggage tag, and let us go through. I had no idea what was going on, and neither did Lane. But Jezzy, who remember is from Cebu, informed us that that was a Shakedown. We were only asked for our tickets because we were the last to leave the terminal, and they saw Lane at the nearby currency exchange booth receiving Filipino pesos.

We ran into a similar situation outside the terminal, when we attempted to get our luggage loaded into the van that was waiting for us. Lane found a baggage guy and asked him to help us load. Jezzy was at the back of the van as two guys loaded the bags. Lane knew he wanted to tip them, but could only get large bills from the currency exchange Booth inside the terminal. So he was trying to get smaller bills from a nearby vendor. While he was doing that two other baggage guys put their hands on the bags, and helped load them. Lane tipped the two guys at the back of the van who had loaded our bags. The two other guys were at the side door asking me and Jezzy for a tip. I of course am acting like I don’t know what is going on, because I don’t know what is going on. Lane came to the side door and asked Jezzy why these two guys were asking for a tip. She wasn’t sure, and said just tip them. So Lane gave them a tip as well. so we could just get in the van and go.

Lane later told me, things like this might happen, and it usually did not amount to much, so don’t stress out over it. What Lane tipped them was 50 pesos each, about $1 US. So although he certainty did not like the situation, it was best to just give them something and move on.

The remainder of our arrival in Cebu was pretty uneventful. Thank goodness. We were driven to the hotel, about 30 minutes away. We checked into the Waterfront hotel, and went to our rooms. I took a little time to unpack, and settle in, and ended up going to bed around 5am, local time. It was now Friday the 7th.